The clarion. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1883-1888, 1887-03-30
Advantages of Cocaine.
DIR. HAMMOND WARMLY DEFENDS IHE
DRUG
To the Editor Of the Tribune.

To the Editor Of the Tribune.
SIR: 1t is extremely important that
the public should not be led into the
formation of erroneous ideas relative to
notwithstanding which late
ly great deal has been written. Like
other valuable remedies on their intro
duction to the profession, cocaine is
meeting with the opposition of ultra
conservatives and narrow-minded physi-
clans who oppose everything that any
one else discovers and who look super
ficially at matters that come before
them.
Take, for instance, Peruvian bark, a
remedy that in one form or another has
done more to save life and to civilize
this country than all other medicines
put together; on its introduction into
Europe it met with the most systematic
and determined opposition of the faculty
especially of Spain, in which country
1t first made its appearance, and it ras
not until the Pope, after an examination
of it's qualities, ordered that it should be
used that the war against it in g measure
ceased. As Stille says: Religious and
scholastic prejudices conspired to reject
and contemn one of the most valuable
discoveries recorded in the history of
medicine. Protestant bigotry refused
to admit that powder introduced by
the Jesuits and called after them could
possibly possess any salutary virtues"
1t was regarded as poison of the most
malignant kind, as a producer of fevers,
as a narcotic and as being drug that
the devil had specially selected as his
own. Scribblers denounced it in terms
even worse than those now applied to
cocaine, and deaths from its use were
constantly reported. An English medi
cal man, Talbot, Was so prosecuted by
the College of Physicians on account of
lis using the remedy in his practice
that he was obliged to appeal to the
King for protection, and mandate was
issued forbidding the College to inter
fere with him in any way. Subsequent
ly Talbot went to France where he
cured the Dauphin and other noblemen
of the ague, and then Louis XIV re-
warded him, as was his habit, magnifi-
Gently. After this it gradually made its
way 1t is well known to many now
living that the Scotch Church denounced
the use of anRsthetics in midwifery as
being contrary to the decree of the
Almighty: "In sorrow shalt thou bring
FORTH" and that ether and chloroform
were bitterly denounced by many of the
rost eminent members of the profession
as deathdealing agents never to be used
under any circumstances.
Now, as regards cocaine, we find a
similar course of procedure followed
not to the same extent, for the spirit of
the age is more enlightened. The drug
is denounced by a very few physicians
and cases OF its injurious effects are adj
duced with scarcely a 1.-THE of proof to
sustain them. A patient fsints while
an operation is being performed on tie
eye or rose in which cocaine has been
used to lessen the pain and straightway
some irrepressible physician announces
that cocaine suppresses the action of the
heart-as if patients had never before
tainted from such or even slighter oper-
ations. Another suffers from nervous
exhaustion after cocaine has been ap-
Piled to an aching tooth, and forthwith
the public is warned of the dangerous
qualities OF the medicine. | and other
physicians have seen the most extreme
nervous exhaustion attended with COM
plete Inconsistencies from aching teeth
TO which no cocaine had been applied.
Doubtless in few cases in which there
were peculiar idiosyncrasics cocaine, as
has almost every other drug known to
the materia mediea, produced alarming
symptoms, but it would be foolish to
allow such instances to deter US from
the use OF q most valuable agent or to
alarm the public with false ideas of its
danger. Such bugaboo stories do great
harm BY unnecessarily frightening timid
persons in whose cases the remedy might
have to BE- prescribed and whose fears
might cause dangerous nervous symp-
| toms
Now, Mr.. Editor, in regard further to
the poisonous qualities of cocaine
have never said that it could be taken
indiscriminately BIZ any person. ]
would not declare that of any article of
the materia medica. ! would not even
affirm it Of bread Or mutton or beef.
But have said, and repeat it now,
that large doses OF it can Be taken with.
tout injury, and that M dose that hns
yet been administered has caused death.
We do not know what 8 killing dose i,